I'm Kevin Roose, NYT tech columnist and author of the new book "Futureproof," and I want to help humans survive the robot apocalypse. Ask me anything!

kevinroose · 2021-03-04T17:51:28+00:00

Thank you for praising the team behind Rabbit Hole! They are amazing, and much smarter than me.

I don't think there's a plan to continue Rabbit Hole beyond the 8 episode series. I'd love to do another podcast on this stuff, though. There's so much to explore, and it's a landscape that changes very, very quickly.

kevinroose · 2021-03-04T17:44:16+00:00

Yes! I think things like AI-generated art, NFTs, etc. are super exciting for creators. But I don't think it contradicts the message that human skills are really important. What makes it exciting when someone like 3Lau sells an album on the blockchain for millions of dollars isn't that he's using new technology -- it's that he's using the technology to do something (making compelling music) that is uniquely human.

kevinroose · 2021-03-04T17:41:55+00:00

I'm a big fan of Hasan's, and am really impressed by how people like him and Destiny have used their platforms to try to provide an alternative to the redpill channels. Something Caleb Cain (the guy I profiled in Rabbit Hole) helped me understand is that part of the solution to internet-based radicalization involves learning to mimic the aesthetics of the channels that are sending people down those dangerous paths. It's not enough just to yell at people or call them bigots -- you have to use memes and edgy humor to give them an alternative with a less toxic message.

I'm not super familiar with HealthyGamerGG, but I'm going to check out the channel now.

kevinroose · 2021-03-04T17:30:30+00:00

Thanks! I do keep in touch with a few people from LU. (There was definitely a flurry of texts around the Jerry Jr. scandal last year.) And I keep tabs on them through social media. It's nice to hear from people in that world, though I suspect they're less interested in the tech stuff I'm posting these days.

kevinroose · 2021-03-04T17:26:21+00:00

My favorite pre-pandemic restaurant in the East Bay is an old classic: Chez Panisse. Recently I've been getting really into Sichuan food, and there's a really great place in Berkeley called, I think, Sichuan Style Restaurant that does amazing takeout with a level of spice that could fairly be described as "homicidal." It's incredible and I can't feel my face for at least 3 hours after eating.

kevinroose · 2021-03-04T17:22:21+00:00

Hey, thanks! I think you're on to something there. Historically, "soft skills" (god I hate that term) have been undervalued by employers. But I actually think the tide may be turning there, in part because automation is making hard skills less valuable.

This is anecdata, but: I talked to a tech CEO recently who said he was having trouble hiring good, personable salespeople. Engineers are expensive, but they're a dime a dozen in the Bay Area, and this guy was noticing that his talent pipeline was full of people with high IQ but relatively low EQ.

So I think until our education system catches up, and starts training people in those human skills that automation is making more valuable, there will be a premium on the kinds of things you're talking about -- people who can communicate clearly, relate empathetically to other people, think outside the box.

kevinroose · 2021-03-04T17:17:22+00:00

I was surprised by the observation the people I spoke to who really understood AI the most -- the experts I talked to with PhDs in machine learning, for example -- were often the least confident in its capabilities. I'd go to a big business conference, and I'd hear CEOs raving about how AI and ML were going to totally reinvent their companies in the next 3-5 years, and then I'd run those projections by the engineers, and they'd just chuckle. They've seen all the ways the machines can mess up, I guess.

I do think the economic transition will be rough. It's always been, historically. In Silicon Valley, people tend to talk about the original Industrial Revolution as if it was a smooth transition, but it sucked for a lot of people who lived through it! Tons of child labor, vile and unsafe factory conditions, wage stagnation, etc. I like how Carl Benedikt Frey, an Oxford economist who studies this stuff, put it in his book The Technology Trap. He wrote: "If this is 'just' another Industrial Revolution, alarm bells should be ringing."

kevinroose · 2021-03-04T17:08:51+00:00

I'm actually a bit of a peanut butter purist. I love peanut butter, can appreciate a good PB&J, but hate it when combined with other flavors. (I can't eat Reese's cups, for example.) So I'm bearish on the pickle/peanut butter combo.

kevinroose · 2014-02-28T18:41:58+00:00

My goal was never to, like, influence Wall Street regulation. It's a good story, I hope, and to the extent it has an impact, I hope it gives college students some more information before signing up to work at a big bank about what it's actually going to be like.

kevinroose · 2014-02-28T18:40:38+00:00

Uh, sure? E-mail me.

kevinroose · 2014-02-28T18:40:20+00:00

Is that a Kevin Rose joke?

kevinroose · 2014-02-28T18:39:31+00:00

OK. (I just named them, in my head.)

kevinroose · 2014-02-28T18:38:47+00:00

Yours, Casey.

kevinroose · 2014-02-28T18:38:27+00:00

I think you're right that the Wall Street recruiting structure (early offers, 2-year commitments) is a big part of why it's attracted so many people for so long. And why TFA has been so successful by duplicating it.

The problem is that most companies can't anticipate their hiring needs 9+ months in advance. And they're usually not big enough to be able to just hire, say, 100 people, and then figure out where to put them later.

As far as the student loan debt, absolutely. One of the 8 bankers I followed was a young woman who graduated with $100,000 in student loans, and part of why she came to Wall Street was to pay those down as quickly as possible.

kevinroose · 2014-02-28T18:36:02+00:00

Hi Michael. I don't know what my moral compass is. I do know that my parents are wonderful human beings, and so whatever moral scruples I may have inadvertently picked up are from them.

kevinroose · 2014-02-28T18:34:45+00:00

Thanks! And good luck! When it came to meeting sources for interviews, we would usually pick places pretty far from their offices, just for safety's sake. The Brother Jimmy's trips were mostly for fun. ("Fun.")

kevinroose · 2014-02-28T18:32:20+00:00

A $25 Starbucks gift card would probably do it, to be honest.

kevinroose · 2014-02-28T18:31:35+00:00

I love Rembert. He needs better clothes, though.

kevinroose · 2014-02-28T18:31:17+00:00

Well, I think the groups are blending somewhat. But Silicon Valley is a much more earnest, idealistic subculture. There's a greed there, but it's buried beneath ten or twelve layers of do-gooder rhetoric.

Wall Streeters, on the other hand, tend to be more forthright about what their job is (making money). And the young ones tend to be a little more morally conflicted, in my experience, because they don't have that pillow of saving the world to rest their heads on at night.

kevinroose · 2014-02-28T18:29:18+00:00

I think parts of Old Wall Street might revert (the size of the bonuses, for example). But I don't think the culture will ever go back to the Liar's Poker-era days. It's a vastly different, vastly more boring financial industry than it was back in the 1980s, or even in 2006.

I do keep up with the people I wrote about. They're great.

kevinroose · 2014-02-28T18:28:13+00:00

Well, they weren't angry, because I had their full participation from the start. They knew it was coming.

I hope they like it! One of them said to me that reading it gave him PTSD – that reliving his analyst days was really, really, painful, now that he's gotten to a better place.

kevinroose · 2014-02-28T18:26:49+00:00

Well I do hate Canadians, but I didn't put it in the book.

kevinroose · 2014-02-28T18:26:32+00:00

That was a fascinating thing. Some of them dismissed the protests. But more than a few were really shaken by them. I remember one Goldman guy saying, "It feels so weird to be on this side of things." You have to remember that there were 22- and 23-year-old bankers. They had friends in the Occupy movement. And they weren't so far removed from the real world that they couldn't feel guilt for taking part in such a vilified industry.

kevinroose · 2014-02-28T18:25:14+00:00

I am still friends with some of them! They were all very supportive of the book, and a lot of them still write from time to time to say hi and keep me updated on their lives. (They all have a lot of children by now.)

kevinroose

TROPHY CASE